1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of computing devices and firmware and, more particularly, to simplified access of the computing devices and firmware of the devices.
2. Related Art
In the context of computer systems, enterprise storage architectures provide mass electronic storage of large amounts of data and information. The frenetic pace of technological advances in computing and networking infrastructure—combined with the rapid, large-scale sociological changes in the way these technologies are used—has driven the transformation of enterprise storage architectures faster than perhaps any other aspect of computer systems. This has resulted in a variety of different storage architectures, such as, for example, direct attached JBODs (Just a Bunch Of Disks), SAN (Storage Area Network) attached JBODs, host adapter RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks) controllers, external RAID controllers, redundant external RAID controllers, and NAS (Network Attached Storage). Each of these storage architectures may serve a special niche, and thus may differ significantly in terms of functionality, performance, cost, availability, scalability and manageability.
Typically, any given business has a variety of data storage needs, such as, for example, database storage, home directories, shared application executables, and data warehouse storage. In general, no single one of the previously developed architectures is capable of addressing all of the storage needs of a business. Thus, businesses are forced to use a number of different architectures to provide the functionality and performance which are desired. This results in fragmented data storage which limits the sharing of data resources, erects static boundaries in data, necessitates redundant training for staff, and requires additional management resources. For example, excess storage space in one type of architecture generally cannot be used to ease congestion in an architecture of another type. Nor can storage architectures of different types be used as backup/redundancy for each other.
Furthermore, in more complex data storage systems, many different kinds of memory devices and storage facilities are used. These may include, for example, integrated circuit memory of varying types (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), synchronous DRAM, read only memory (ROM), electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), etc.) and mass storage devices (e.g., magnetic disk drives, optical disk drives, tape storage, etc.). Furthermore, even for a given type of device, the devices can be from different manufacturers or brands. Each type and brand of device may have its own respective set of instructions, routines, and commands for handling data and information. In order to maintain the complex data storage system, the devices that make up the storage system need to periodically be accessed for troubleshooting, maintenance and updating. Each of the various pieces of hardware will generally have different firmware controlling the hardware, and the firmware must be utilized in order to access the device. Because of all the different types of storage devices and brands for each type, however, it can be very hard to keep track of or remember all of the different access commands and routines for each possible piece of the system. This can make the maintenance, upkeep, and troubleshooting of a complex data storage system very burdensome and difficult.